Post 1) Has anyone had a go at cooking with RoseHips? I’m on with a ‘wild food’ kind of mission. Spent 2 hours topping and tailing rosehips this evening, and am hopefully going to end up with rose hip and apple jelly (that is the plan, the reality may just be a sticky mess). I’ve heard that you’re supposed to avoid aluminium or iron pans, I don’t mean to be thick, but how can you tell what sort of pans you have? Something to do with these sort of pans draining vitamin C from the Rose Hips.

I suspect this is a very stupid question.

(Answer: was not forthcoming, because it was really quite a stupid question)

Post 2: I’ve been wondering about how to work out when rosehips are actually ripe…I suppose it’s just when they’re really red?I got spiked to bits with thorns whilst picking them. They seem a bit buggy, which is a bit of a turn off I have to admit. About as bad as, or maybe a bit worse than raspberries. At least I’ll be straining them, so we won’t get any of the wigglies in the jam / jelly. I think I may have left them too long in the fridge.

Thanks for the tip about the honey, I may try that too. Pink honey, sounds lovely. So you literally just add a rosehip to a jar of honey? Do people use fine muslin to strain the hips? I’ve read that they’re dangerous otherwise. I’ve used a teatowel to strain blackberries, I suppose that’s not going to be good enough is it? Any ideas?

(Replies basically said ‘no’ to tea-towels and ‘yes’ to muslin – which I had none of)

Post 3: Right well! I think this may be my last attempt at Rose-flipping-hips! I topped and tailed them last night and come today, they’re a bit crawly. Not loads, but enough to make me go (shudders and pulls face)

I’ve just gritted my teeth and told myself that raspberries get like this and all they’ve eaten is rose-hips and that it’s not really an issue. So I’ve tried to blitz them in my food processor, which has just chosen this evening to jam and not work properly – so tons of half minced hips, and gunk.

I put it all in the pan to boil, and am in the process of making ‘syrup’. I don’t think I’ll be doing this again. Couldn’t find any muslin to strain it through, so have cut up a pillowcase, and have used double thickness material, and have strained the stuff about 4 times now. Am currently in the process of boiling approx 3 pints of peachy, oddly scented water, down by half, and have a kitchen with the atmospheric conditions of a greenhouse in mid June during a heatwave. I’ve got that ‘I’ve Started So I’ll Finish!’ feeling. Will just have to see how it goes.

Right, I’ve finished it now. OH says it tastes like nasty sugary stuff. I think it just tastes a bit weird.Post 4: What is it supposed to taste like?!!Thing is, because it got buggy, I’m not sure if I made this after the rose-hips had gone off – which would of course make it taste totally different to what it’s supposed to be like. I mean, I know what apples look like if they’ve gone off, or bananas etc – but I haven’t got a clue about rose-hips. I don’t know! Maybe I’ll just pass these jars onto other people who don’t know what it’s supposed to taste like either.

Post 5: This is the recipe if anyone is fool enough to have a go at it! I’d recommending topping and tailing the hips and immediately cooking them. I don’t think they last very well (written whilst trying to block out the mental image of me fishing wriggly things out of the water with a slotted spoon)

Top and tail the rosehips.Bring 3 pts of water to the boil.Mince the rosehips through a course profile mincer (or food processor).Transfer the fruit into fast boiling water and bring to the boil again. Remove from heat and leave for 15 minutes.Pour through a sterilised jelly bag/or muslin square and allow the majority of the liquid to drip through.Return the pulp to the pan and add 1.5 pts of fresh boiling water and bring to the boil. Remove from heat and leave for 15 minutes.Strain through the jelly bag again.Pour extracted liquid into a clean saucepan and boil to reduce the liquid to 1.5 pts.Add the sugar and boil rapidly fro another 5 minutes. Pour into hot sterile bottles and seal immediately.

Post 6: I was a bit worried about making us all ill, the hairs are an irritant and can irritate the stomach if swallowed, as well as irritating skin. I read that it’s best to use fine muslin, but tbh, the muslin I found had a thicker weave than my old pillowcase, so I just strained it through a double layer every time it said to strain it on this recipe – and then once more for good measure right at the end.

No worries so far.

Post 7: I’m not sure about how to pot the stuff up. I never did the wax disc thing, I just boiled the tops for a couple of minutes, and made sure the tops were metal ones. I don’t know if that’s going to be a problem or not though.

When I did the dripping bit, I had an old ripped up pillowcase with the stuff enclosed in it, held together with a hairband; the hairband was hooked onto the bottom of one of those spaghetti ladling spoons, and the spoon was hooked onto a metal hanging rack on my wall. Talk about heath robinson! It’s a very chaotic set up really.

A year later….basically no-one ate any of it, least of all me. I associated the smell of the rosehips with wriggly things, and could not stomach it at all. I found one of the untouched jars at the back of my mum’s fridge about a month ago (you’re only supposed to keep fresh rosehip syrup for a couple of weeks and this rosehip mission was almost a year ago now). I suspect mum kept the stuff in the fridge for the sake of being nice to her daughter, but couldn’t touch the stuff either.

My blender was completely knackered after this and I had to buy a new one!

I’d definitely recommend having a go at this recipe, just don’t leave the hips to fester in the fridge after topping and tailing; have a sensible straining thingumajig set up; have a ‘wellard!’ blender and make sure you have plenty of friends who have no idea about how rosehip syrup is supposed to taste so you can fob them off with your beautifully, randomly presented gift. It’s also very important not to let the syrup remind you of another light orange, lukewarm liquid that you’d not want to partake of unless you’re marooned on a boat in the middle of the Atlantic ocean without water.

Go for it! Let me know how you get on! ;O)

PS. It’s really good fun fishing the ‘wrigglies’ out of the mixture…..honest.

4 responses to “How to Make a Complete Muck Up of Rose Hip Syrup!”

I tried making this a couple of years ago and encountered much the same hurdles as you! The end result was a wishy-washy orangey-pink tasteless waste of time.
I was trying to replicate the gorgeously sticky sweet syrup I used to drink as a kid. Back when my little brother was a baby, this stuff was commonly given to infants to drink being high in vitamins. I have searched in vain for years to buy a bottle of the stuff and it seems they just don’t make it any more (probably because if had more sugar than a Silver Spoon factory) but it was delish. Unlike the crud I made!
My recommendation? Make Sloe Gin instead – much more satisfying (although you can’t give it to the kids ovb) xx
@missielizzieb

Sloe gin is gorgeous stuff! I definitely need to get on the case with that before everyone else nicks the sloes around here. Glad it’s not just me that struggled with Rosehip syrup! Thank you for commenting and for reading :O)